Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991)

Details

Original Title: Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

Release Date: October 01, 1991

Runtime: 113 minutes

Budget: $0.0

Revenue: $0.0

Overview

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

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Cast

Jason Robards

Narrator (voice)

Susan Douglas

Self - Historian

Garrison Keillor

Self - Writer

Fred Allen

Self - Predicts Demise of Radio (archive footage)

Gene Autry

Self - Sings (archive sound)

John Barrymore

Hamlet (archive sound)

Winston Churchill

Self - Finest Hour Speech (archive sound)

Charles J. Correll

Self - Prepares for Amos 'n' Andy Broadcast (archive footage)

Lee De Forest

Self - Objects to Quality of Radio Programming (archive footage)

Ralph Edwards

Self - Host of 'This Is Your Life' (archive footage)

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Self - Announces Landing in Normandy (archive footage)

Freeman F. Gosden

Self - Prepares for Amos 'n' Andy Broadcast (archive footage)

Marie Mosquini

Self - with Lee De Forest (archive footage)

Nelson Rockefeller

Self - Eulogizes Sarnoff (archive footage)

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Self - Makes Broadcast About Banking Reform (archive footage)

Frank Sinatra

Self - Serenades Sarnoff (archive footage)

Arturo Toscanini

Self - Conducts NBC Symphony (archive footage)

Harry S. Truman

Self - Announces Bombing of Hiroshima (archive sound)

Orson Welles

Self - Professor in War of the Worlds Broadcast (archive sound)

Crew

Ken Burns

Director

Ken Burns

Director of Photography

Ken Burns

Executive Producer

Ken Burns

Music Director

Ken Burns

Producer

Lee Dichter

Sound Re-Recording Mixer

Buddy Squires

Director of Photography

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